Still to come: NCIS: New Orleans (CBS), Gracepoint (FOX), The Kingdom (DirecTV), Cristela (ABC), The Walking Dead (AMC), Jane the Virgin (CBS), Marry Me (NBC), Grimm (NBC) and The McCarthys (CBS).

33. The Mysteries of Laura (NBC)

A bigger mystery to me than Laura (or even Laura), is why Debra Messing keeps getting leading roles in TV shows. Or rather, how she picked this one, and who thought the Will & Grace and Smash star was a good fit for a brusque, “badass” awful woman cop show. In the opening moments, we learn that she has a black partner who won’t hesitate to cover her “skinny ass,” and that Detective Laura Diamond (a TV name if I’ve ever heard one) is a morose, protocol-be-damned police woman who can’t help but wonder if anybody has jobs, because HOW DARE people hang out in the park on a sunny afternoon. With its ratings already dropping, I wonder if she will have a job much longer.

Hopefully, it’d rid the world of NBC’s “Woman Crush Weddings,” which apparently is lifted from #WCW, a mind-numbing Twitter hashtag. I’m going to start one: #girlsIwanttofuck. NBC’s Wednesday night block is made up of three grimly serious cops shows (Law & Order: SVU and Chicago P.D. round out the triumvirate), so naturally the marketing campaign devolved into relying on Sophia Bush, Debra Messing and Mariska Hargitay’s considerable sex appeal, rather than being tough workplace role models or whatever.

Laura drives a Volvo, shops at Target and comes equipped with an inspired catchphrase (“You’ve gotta be kidding me!”), deplorable parenting skills and an insulting almost ex-husband Jake (Josh Lucas, never worse) who just can’t bring himself to sign the papers, a family dynamic that sets TV back 43 years. She drugs her children for a private school interview (God forbid these tyrants go to public), and blackmailed a gym teacher with a lot of parking tickets to even get them that interview. Laura actually says, “I’m a mother, with a shiny badge, a loaded gun and very little patience.” There’s the logline that sold the pitch! I think she said that on school grounds, but I could just be imagining that specific horror. It’s like a future Melissa McCarthy movie, except Mysteries of Laura takes itself seriously. You shouldn’t.

Favorite Moments From The Pilot:

1) When Laura Diamond makes a house call, a rich housewife bats her eyelashes; heh, you’re cute, you’re a “middle-aged woman cop…just like on TV!” Mysteries of Laura thinks its clever. Just like pilot director McG probably thinks his name makes people think of anything other than a Happy Meal with explosions.

2) Laura calls men sloppy derisively. The frame widens to find Black Partner spilling popcorn all over the place. Hypocrite alert: Laura’s a slob who eats week old burritos she finds hidden among the piles of crap on her desk.

3) Laura’s kids actually deserve to be drugged and/or murdered. They pee on each other in public and just might be insane. Best of all is when Laura gets called into school, her gun automatically out (you don’t want to go into an elementary school unarmed) and there appears to be BLOOD all over the classroom. But no, it’s just her messy children taking over art class, or whatever. Because bloody classrooms are the best setup for a joke.

The pilot has one pleasure: a mini-Galaxy Quest reunion! Quellek (Patrick Breen) has aged into what appears to be a gay Peter Capaldi, and joins his former Thermian leader Mathesar (the incomparable Enrico Colantoni). The pleasure wears off pretty fast when you realize it had to come on this show. Plus, Quellek gets killed off pretty fast (perhaps fitting), and unfortunately, Alan Rickman does not come prancing in, promising that, By Grabthar’s Hammer, he shall be avenged. Even that probably couldn’t save this show.

32. Z Nation (SyFy)

Oh man, this show is so crummy guys (CRUMMY). It’s close to becoming the designated Drinking Game Show of the week, but I don’t know if the show knows how bad it is yet, and I don’t care enough to find out. And I don’t foresee a shortage of drinking in my future.

It’s SyFy’s answer/rip-off of The Walking Dead, set three years after the first infection. You know how screwed the world would be if a zombie apocalypse happened? DJ Qualls, yes that DJ Qualls, would be military. He practically is a DJ here, living up to his name, with “season tickets to the zompocalypse,” working alone at Camp Northern Light, or something. Even in a dystopia, nobody wants to hang out with DJ Qualls. Qualls is late to evacuate the base, and they leave without him; they immediately fly to their deaths. They’d rather die than hang out with DJ Qualls. I’d rather watch almost anything else than Z Nation.

Z Nation is filled with more nonsensical, military BS talk than the “Z’s” themselves (what a clever term for zombies). The world-saving mission that the surviving dregs of the military are on is called “Operation Bitemark.” Seriously. Most of the tomfoolery is uttered by DJ Qualls, rendering any call sign or operation name about as meaningful as a Bluth family mission. I’d take Operation Hot Mother any day, but I’m a Motherboy.

Speaking of children, there’s also a zombie baby stuffed amid a mission to the CDC, a possible zombie cure, and essentially all four seasons of TWD jammed in an hour. For those who bemoan the AMC show’s deliberate pace, Z Nation provides a terrifyingly awful counter argument. There are several deaths, time jumps and tragedies that befall this boring cast of stock characters, but there’s never a reason to give a shit. We need to care about these people before it matters when they die. Of course, Z Nation is a show where you’re definitely rooting for the zombies to tear into these people so we don’t have to waste any more time on them. The more they kill, the closer to the end of the world, and hopefully, the end of this show.

Favorite Moments:

• “He’s a baby. He makes noise.” “Shut up.”
• LOST refugee Harold Perrinau’s Hammond at one point sighs, “God I hate moral dilemmas.” SyFy has a moral dilemma on whether or not they should keep this show on the air.
• Fantastic zombie rules: “A month ago? That’s like 2 years apocalypse time.”

I actually did like the idea of a pop-up weapons caravan that sells various guns, knives, bullets and other hairy concoctions. I also enjoyed the conceit that the zombie’s speed depends on how long they’ve been dead: they’re fast immediately after, then slow as time goes on. This doesn’t explain why a baby turns into a devastating ferret-like monster once bitten, since zombism presumably doesn’t make you faster. Or so one would think. But there’s not a lot of thought put into Z Nation.

31. Forever (ABC)

Ioan Gruffudd might be the most boring actor on the planet, yet he keeps landing TV roles, his career seemingly as immortal as his title character in this dull show.

At one point during this derivative pilot, Henry (Gruffudd) explains to us in a droll monologue: “My life is just like yours, except for one small difference…it never ends.”

I live forever, no biggie guys. I’m just like you. You can empathize me, relate to my suffering. WHAT THE FUCK?! If an immortal prick tried to befriend me, the injustice would be that I couldn’t friggin’ kill him. My life is just likes yours, except I’m Brad Pitt. My life is just like yours, except I own an island. My life is just like yours, except I’m the orphan of a now extinct alien race.

Henry has “seen a lot,” but hasn’t learn shit about life or his condition over the last 200 years of his life. He just knows that when he dies, he wakes up in the nearest body of water naked, not a scratch on him. He’s Ichabod Crane/Sherlock Holmes without the charm or quirks. He’s understandably obsessed with death, so he works at a morgue along with Joel David Moore (Bones, Avatar), who has been neurotic and awkward as long as this show’s title (For-Ev-Er).

In the opening scene Henry’s the only survivor of a massive subway accident, and even before he gets a cryptic villainous phone call, I was having Unbreakable flashbacks. While it’s not exactly Mr. Glass on the other end, there’s someone else like him out there, and they’re about to engage in a Sherlock/Moriarty battle, with New York as the playground. Or something.

What’s depressing about Forever, or at least, a few of the things that make me depressed, is that the wacky premise is just an excuse to throw Henry into a police procedural opposite Detective Jo Martinez (Alana De La Garza), a woman who escaped Woman Crush Wednesdays, and after one case, gets to bring Henry along during investigations until this show gets cancelled. This job tag-along crap is one of my favorite procedural tropes; if there’s ever a murder involving fantasy football, Red Pandas and IPA’s, I might walk away with a job.

Henry’s lifespan and accumulated knowledge only manifests itself in his keen observational skills. He’s another Psych, Mentalist, Sherlock character, because the public loves seeing assholes who can figure out that you’re allergic to coconuts, have 3 cats, like anal sex and are still emotionally recovering from the death of your postman. Women also love men who pay attention, so Henry’s a ladies man. Throw in a little bit o’ Nazi backstory, and you have Forever, a show I’ll be watching…

Never. Never again, anyways. Unless the Moriarty character is played by Alan Rickman.

30. Manhattan Love Story (ABC)

“I want to write a love story set in Manhattan.”

“Oh my god, what a revolutionary idea, and even better, it already has a ready-made, totally informative, awesome title!”

“Love Story Set In Manhattan? Sounds awkward.”

“Manhattan Love Story, silly.”

“OMG, you’re right.”

A studio exec leans over the coffee table, spilling their mimosa. “Excuse me, did you say Manhattan Love Story? We’ll BUY IT!”

Manhattan Love Story sounds like a vague place holder title a writer would have on his To-Do list, or the barebones plot description of this mostly dreadful pilot. But, I suppose it tells you all you need to know: not to watch it.

In the nightmarish opening moments, Peter (Jake McDorman) walks down the New York street, debating whether or not he’d have sex with the women along his path. Coming from the opposite direction is Dana (Analeigh Tipton), who’s doing the same thing…with purses (she’s debating whether she’d own them, not fuck them, I think). When they pass one another, they both essentially say “Yes” to each other, and this is their unfortunate story.

Neurotic, single and “adorkable” Dana just moved to New York because of a new job. Of course, that’s not really important. What’s important is that she’s single and needs a boy, or so sayeth her evil, manipulative, yoga instructor friend/roommate Amy (Jade Catta-Preta), a character type that only exists on shitty sitcoms.

Amy’s that girl who always has to be in control, forcing her husband-or-whatever David (Nicolas Wright) to enlist his brother, who of course is Peter, to go on a date with Dana. You don’t need me to tell you that it goes terribly. Dana is a klutz with technology/everything, accidentally typing Peter Cooper into her Facebook status (a clever joke mined in Trophy Wife last year). She also calls instead of texts, and does the unbearably painful accidental text ABOUT Peter TO Peter (okay, so I’ve been there). Dana’s a mess, guys.

Whereas Peter is a ladies man who sees women as trophies, which makes sense, because he works for a company that makes trophies, a business that is BOOMING, because America loves to reward everything, not just first place, in order to celebrate mediocrity. You could say the same about Manhattan Love Story and network television, though that might be mistaken for a compliment.

Dana cries on her date, Peter makes fun of her cute list of things she wants to do in NY, and the pair have an awful, dueling stream of consciousness monologue happening in their respective heads at all times. It’s a conceit that might’ve been wonderful on How I Met Your Mother, but here, it emphasizes how little you actually want to hear these characters talk.

Peter and Dana, of course, make up, and have a moment en route to the Statue of Liberty, one of the things on Dana’s list. It’s clear the two of them will have a bumpy road, and I suppose that’s the flimsy hook of the pilot: what touristy things are these mismatched heathens going to do next in the most overseen city in America? Perhaps more importantly: will Dana conquer social media? Judging by the final moments, when she has an embarrassing encounter with her FB relationship status (a joke that would’ve felt biting in 2006), the outlook is about as bleak as this show’s prospects. The show probably won’t last, which is almost a shame, because then my spec script Toledo Love Story won’t get off the ground.

29. Bad Judge (NBC)

You’ll hate this show by the opening frame: Kate Walsh, passed out in an impossible position, wearing a leopard print bra, and shimmery sequin underwear, is jolted awake by the omnipresent alarm clock. She’s late to work, and has to pop pills incessantly to get there in time, driving an insane hippie van en route to Van Nuys Municipal Court, while awaiting the results of her pregnancy test. It’s a testament to how lame this show is, that I feel bad that Van Nuys has the unfortunate duty of taking the brunt of the setting, and Van Nuys is the cesspool of the valley.

Kate Walsh plays Judge Rebecca Wright, and she’s actually not as Bad as you think she is: she’s a slutty, messy alcoholic, sure, but she shows up, and goes well beyond her job description when it comes to helping out Robby (Theodore Barnes), a kid whose parents are in jail because Rebecca put them there. As Judge Hernandez states, “You’re a Judge, not a social worker!” but who really cares? Rebecca may have had wine and cake for breakfast, or so she says, and we’re supposed to revel in how screwed up she is, but she mostly just talks about how bad she is, than actually being bad. She saves Robby from bullies and juvie, makes a nice speech at some boring gala and has friends at the Court, while seeing through the inherent bullshit of Douglas Riller (the normally fantastic Chris Parnell), who’s on trial for having two families or something.

The show also stars Ryan Hansen (Party Down) as Gary, one of Rebecca Wright’s many hook-ups (they have sex in her chambers!). After Gary Busey, he’s her favorite Gary, clearly the one that’s supposed to stick (for the four episodes that this show will last). I think Gary Busey could make a more coherent sitcom than Bad Judge.

Bad TeacherJudge was envisioned as a female Eastbound & Down, with Adam McKay and Will Ferrell trying to spice up a show…created by Anne Heche (THE Anne Heche). What remains is a show that doesn’t know what it is, stumbling out of the gates drunkenly in high heels. Its pilot starts abruptly; I felt like I had a hangover similarly potent to Rebecca’s, not the kind of feeling I want when watching TV.

I expected to despise Bad Judge, but instead, due to its limp existence, found myself completely emotionless. Bad Judge not only lacks laughs, but a pulse. There’s some inkling of a Bad Santa-like relationship between Rebecca and Robby, and it certainly was the most tolerable part about the pilot, but to call it disjointed from the rest of the proceedings is an understatement. It didn’t mesh at all with what the show is supposed to be. Of course, I don’t know if NBC has any idea what Bad Judge is supposed to be, and I’m not going to bother finding out.

Tone Bell (…Whitney), who plays Tedward Mulray (really?), the court security officer and pigeonholed black character, remarks: “2014 is a trip.” Excuse the poor writing (it’s not like Bad Judge sets a high bar), but 2014’s Fall TV is a (bad) trip.

28. Mulaney (FOX)

Saturday Night Live writer-performer and stand-up comedian John Mulaney is talented, likable and a star seemingly perfectly suited for a TV show.

But something has gone horribly wrong with Mulaney. I was told by someone I reasonably trust that Mulaney was originally intended as a meta-sitcom hoping to lampoon the very nature of sitcoms themselves. Instead, what came out is exactly the kind of show that John Mulaney would most certainly revel in making fun of. It’s a crappy, cliche sitcom, one so bewildering and unfortunate, that I’m at a loss of what the hell I just watched.

In the show, Mulaney is a struggling stand-up comedian and writer, nervous for an interview with the pompous TV personality Lou Cannon (Martin “Life’s Too” Short “To Be Wasting His Time On This”). He, of course, gets the job, but it’s a mixed blessing because Lou sucks. While Mulaney struggles with his “dream job,” fellow comic Motif (Seaton Smith) finds himself in the zeitgeist with a new hip joke, “Problem Bitch.” Even if it doesn’t have an ending. He has an 18 hour window to come up with one, until the audience realizes they’re “laughing at nothing.” It’ll take you far less time to realize you’re doing the same thing while watching Mulaney, even with the live studio audience somehow churning out a laugh track.

Whenever I create the League of Extraordinarily Awful TV Characters, pretty much everyone on this show will compete for a spot on the hotly contested roster. Jane (Nasim Pedrad) argues convincingly that definitions of “crazy” for men and women mean entirely different things, but she justifies every bad thing a man has thought about a “crazy” woman in this episode. She’s going through a break up, so she breaks into the guy’s emails, stalks him, uprooting flowers that she planted at his apartment. She actually is INSANE. Hilarious. Andre (Zack Pearlman) is the douchiest drug dealer you could come up with, inspiring a Newman-like hatred from Mulaney and the rest of his friends. And that’s the point; the parallels between Mulaney and Seinfeld are obvious. Each episode starts up with Mulaney’s stand up, and he plays a version of himself alongside larger-than-life sitcom characters who “enliven” every scene with big entrances.

The whole show is trying too hard; John Mulaney and company seem so desperate to please, that each tired situation and joke nearly causes physical pain. Everyone is mugging for the camera as if they’re attention starved extras. It’s like watching an ill-advised sketch that isn’t working…that runs for 22 minutes. This show has Martin Short and Elliott Gould, two all-time greats. It can’t be this dire, can it?

Motif’s “joke” boils down to this: “If you don’t know the problem, you’re the problem bitch.” FOX makes an easy target as the problem bitch for a show with so many of them, but I don’t think anyone is innocent. Everyone involved with the show is the problem, bitch.

27 & 26. A to Z (NBC)/Selfie (ABC)

Both of these are grouped together for many reasons. One is so I don’t have to waste the time writing two separate entries, but mostly it’s because both shows are misguided, mostly repugnant sitcoms, wasting the efforts of truly likable people. It’s also because I watched them on the same day, about a month ago, and have blissfully forgotten most of that experience.

How does a show with Karen Gillan and John Cho elicit so much hatred? Because they happen to be in a show called Selfie. It’s an abhorrent title that has no defense, but we as a society deserve at least some of the blame for enabling a studio to even consider this a smart idea. There’s an inherent hypocrisy that “Selfie” is getting such a bad rap for a name, when almost every single one of us are taking selfies whenever possible. But at least we’re not making a TV show about it, you rightfully counter.

The title isn’t the only problem with Selfie, unfortunately. Its first half is as bad and cringe-worthy as you expect a show called Selfie to be, with Karen Gillan slutting it up and bravely becoming the world’s worst human, consumed with likes and follows, with no notion of how to be an actual person. She is the Black Hole of Suck that embodies all that’s wrong with social media. Enter John Cho, as her life coach and I’m sure her eventual love interest, except the show won’t last long enough to get there. It’s a testament to Gillan and Cho’s talents that they can SOMEHOW make the show watchable in the second half, when Gillan’s Eliza Dooley becomes less like a terrifying caricature and a living manifestation of nails on a chalkboard, and someone who just barely avoids deserving a punch in the mouth from every person she meets. It’s actually a mild miracle that could portend a dramatic turnaround a la Cougar Town, but I doubt it.

Sidenote: Is John Cho on a mission to star in every TV show on air? He had Go On, a recurring role on Sleepy Hollow, this mess, and a cush voice gig on American Dad! I guess he figures he needs about 2-3 a season to have one at any given time.

Since How I Met Your Dad didn’t happen, A to Z is the gimmicky, schmaltzy romantic sitcom that hopes to take its place, even gifted with the absolutely adorable Cristin Milioti, who somehow lived up to being the Mother on HIMYM. It also has Mad Men scene stealer Ben Feldman, the Andrew to Milioti’s Zelda (get it, A to Z?). There probably isn’t a more delightful new coupling on TV. Or so you’d think.

A to Z is a show that stars a woman I’m legitimately mad I’m not old enough, New York enough, or talented enough to have met before she was famous. The pilot features multiple Back to the Future references. I still probably won’t watch another episode.

Andrew (Feldman) and Zelda (Milioti) are perfect for each other because the Narrator (Katey Sagal doing her best Allison Janney impersonation, oddly enough) tells us in an obnoxious opener that actually “reveals” that Andrew’s a man’s man who loves sports with the boyz, while Zelda is a girl’s girl…and Andrew sings Celine Dion (who doesn’t?)…blegh. They, of course, have insanely specific shared interests, ones that can be mined for comedy and for stubborn, insistent proof that they are one another’s romantic destiny. Instead, Andrew just comes off as a creep in proving their meant to be-ness. It’s hard to make the charming Ben Feldman creepy, but A to Z manages just fine. That’s what happens when a guy tracks down concert footage to prove whether or not someone you hardly know was in attendance.

Feldman and Milioti are meant for great things, just not for each other, at least not in A to Z. Like Andrew’s character, it’s trying too hard. If it was a bit worse, and I was a curmudgeon, I’d finish this review with the painful retort: “With an entire alphabet to play with, the only letter it reaches is F.”

That’s a failing grade, y’all.

25. Red Band Society (FOX)

Because Fault of Our Stars was a YA sensation, the clear message to advertisers is this: young people love to watch young people die (I guess this is more or less true considering Hunger Games and the string of dystopian successes). But Red Band Society uses this as a shortcut to feels and tragedy, rather than earning an audience’s emotional investment.

In a hospital that has a rooftop perfect for parties, a wealthy hypochondriac recluse who lives in one of the wings and gives dope to kids (An American Werewolf in London‘s Griffin Dunne, actually giving the show a breath of funky fresh air) and attractive doctors, lives a group of kids of various socioeconomic backgrounds, ages, and diseases. They are the Red Band Society.

Octavia Spencer is a “scary bitch,” who relishes in the barista getting her name right on the coffee cup. While the cup reads scary bitch, this is Nurse Jackson, the hardened woman keeping track of all these sick kids, who also has a heart of gold. But she doesn’t want to be muffin buddies with Nurse Dobler (Rebecca Rittenhouse), whose crime is clear: she’s too nice. You made me a plate of muffins? How dare you try to befriend me, you BITCH?!

The Red Band Society comes with a mawkish monologue from coma patient Charlie (name o’ the week nominee Griffin Gluck), who speaks in “this means that” misdirection with a voice that reminds you of Home Alone-era Macaulay Culkin. There’s “…the story you want people to know and the one you don’t.” “How do you tell someone who needs a heart…that she never had one to begin with?” “Luck isn’t getting what you want, it’s surviving what you don’t want.” [When you get sick, people assume] “life stops…but it’s the opposite: life starts.” We have to forgive the Hallmark/inspirational phrase-of-the-day calendar stuff, because Charlie’s speaking FROM a coma: “This is me, talking to you from a coma. Deal with it.” Okay.

Kara (Zoe Levin) is the early favorite for Worst New Character on TV: she’s a Mean Girl cheerleader who coins phrases like “niplash” and after she collapses during practice, she decides to smoke in the hospital, BLOW CIGARETTE SMOKE INTO CHARLIE’S FACE (Charlie being the coma patient), and uses Charlie’s call button to get attention. She treats the nurses like their room service: she actually orders a kale salad from Nurse Jackson. But dammit, she needs a heart transplant. Maybe I should feel bad, but mostly I felt like they were robbing me of my ability to hate this character, who deserves several volumes of text dedicated to hating her. Kara’s not going to be eligible for a heart any time soon, thanks to her wide and varied drug use seen in her toxicology report. Wah wah.

Red Band Society ladles on the sentimentality and depression in equal measures, but luckily, the show’s heart is in the right place, even if their characters may not have working ones. Eventually, being forced to feel actually works, and dammit if something wasn’t stirring when Leo (Charlie Rowe) brings the gang together, and gives them all red bands, bracelets from his various surgeries that he’s kept as horrific mementos, quoting Shakespeare’s Henry V, labeling them his band of brothers. The relationship between Leo and new roommate Jordi (Nolan Sotillo) is the show’s saving grace, as Leo turns into an unlikely mentor for a friend forced to wade through the same tragedy. On the eve of an operation that will leave Jordi minus a leg, Leo promises him: “they can never cut into your soul.”

While Red Band Society smacks of somehow translating cancer kids and their foibles into marketing money, the show still feels like it has one. A soul, that is.

24. Madam Secretary (CBS)

Is “Not Politics As Usual” the most awkward slogan ever? Or is it the title I wish this show to have? Probably both, even if this is very much…politics as usual.

The Oval Office has always needed a middle-aged mother of three. After the Secretary of State’s plane went down, Keith Carradine (joining the annals of TV Presidency) tabs Elizabeth McCord (Tea Leoni) for the job. They apparently used to work in The Company together (we’re so cool we don’t have to call it the CIA). Prepare to hear The Company more times than you care to.

She’s the “least political person” the President knows, the only one he can trust to make real change. After all: “You don’t just think outside the box, you don’t know there is a box.” How do you say no to that pitch?

Ugh. Someone at CBS said yes to this pitch, and while it has many laughable and groan-worthy moments, it’s also very…competent. Elizabeth McCord may think outside the box, but this show is constructed entirely out of boxes. There’s a conspiracy, Elizabeth relies on her skills as a Mother in matters of National Security and diplomatic peacekeeping meetings with equal aplomb, and she even has to weather a new personal stylist. Oh, politics. You’re the worst.

But this show somehow isn’t. It’s so very standard, and predictable, but it’s not bad. It’s comfort food that tries to have edge: Elizabeth has shady contacts! Tim Daly is always shady! There’s a shady death! Politics are so shady, but the show’s tactics are so familiar, that its edges only further embolden the box’s architecture.

Zeljko Ivanek has played so many government aides that it’d be weird for him NOT to be in this show. How many times do you have to play a “combative chief of staff” before he gets grandfathered into the real Oval Office?

Hilariously, Quellek of Galaxy Quest, is ALSO in this show, as the director of the CIA. Good for Patrick Breen. He doesn’t even die!

At some point in this pilot episode, a character (probably a politician), admits, “I don’t think now is the time for substance.” He/she could be talking about this show, this fall season, or network TV as a whole. It’s certainly been CBS’ politics as usual mantra and MO for years (with a few exceptions), and it’s worked for so long, because these are the kind of shows that become hits and stay on for years and years. Why do so many people settle for mediocre, “safe” TV? Because so many people are morons. But with more and more outlets for content, and so many of them outstripping the major networks, hopefully the networks will respond with something bolder than a woman in the oval office.

23. Stalker (CBS)

Kevin Williamson has forever cemented his place in my heart with Dawson’s Creek, but Stalker continues a disturbing trend of horror-shock entertainment, akin to The Following.

We open with a hooded stalker with creepy slits in his mask burning a woman alive in her car. This case is forwarded to LA’s Threat Assessment Unit, where Beth Davis (Maggie Q) and her team excel in tackling stalker cases. How To Make It In America‘s Victor Rasuk and True Blood‘s Mariana Klaveno are Detectives with the thankless duty of holding case files and introducing them, while murmuring about how capable Beth is to the new guy Jack Larsen (Dylan McDermott), who’s hired to make sure the other detectives never have to leave the office. Jack was transferred from NY to LA because he slept with his boss’ wife, he has a big personality, and basically for being everything you personify in a Dylan McDermott character. Meaning: you hate him, just like Beth does when she first meets the lout; it’s slightly clever of Stalker to play with McDermott’s inherent hate-ability even if I question their methods. He’s a smart ass who makes inappropriate jokes (he transferred to LA to meet Scarlett Johansson, presumably a stalking victim) and admits to checking out Beth’s breasts; what’s not to love? Oh, he’s also tailing a blonde woman (Angel‘s Elisabeth Rohm) with a family, potentially a devious stalker himself.

Stalker is slick (because misogyny is cool, yo), mostly well made, but do you really want to spend an hour watching men and women getting attacked? That’s just not the type of escapist entertainment I’m drawn to, and this show doesn’t posit itself as anything more than that.

During a convenient lecture, Beth Davis tells us that over 6 million people get stalked each year; that’s 1 in 6 women and 1 in 19 men. It’s a serious problem, one exacerbated by social media and the unparalleled access people are relenting online. You want Stalker to get into the mindsets of stalkers, to attempt to take some sort of stance, but much like The Following, it’s mostly reveling in the violence, while Stalker‘s crippled with a procedural bent on a case of the week. It doesn’t glorify stalkers like The Following seemingly did for serial killers and cults in a disturbing way, but Stalker is already walking a fine line.

Stalkers are a sticky topic: most people don’t notify the police, or when they do, they can’t prove it. This is the crux of the problem; law enforcement can’t help most of the time, a realization that has spurred Beth to take matters into her own hands, much like a vigilante. This revenge fantasy could turn the show on its head, and highlighting the problems with catching real-life stalkers almost seems important. But it certainly feels like Stalker is going to be a spotlight for creepy, over-the-top horror movie level villains. That’s the mistake Kevin Williamson and company make; they assume the greater the evil, the freakier it is. I daresay focusing on the stalkers we’d find in real life are even scarier.

EW always brings together some of the best and most interesting stars together for what are normally fun and rousing panels. This year, Darren Franich moderates the “Brave New Warriors” panel that included Sleepy Hollow‘s Tom Mison, Fury‘s Jon Bernthal, The Giver‘s Brenton Thwaites, Sons of Anarchy‘s Theo Rossi and Bates Motel‘s Freddie Highmore. Franich makes a reference to the third best teen team in the 1990’s, which is awesome.

Tom Mison was easily the highlight, as he apologized to everyone in Ballroom 20 for being unable to get into the Game of Thrones panel, which elicited laughs and thousands of nods.

Over the course of the evening, I learned that Jon Bernthal would like to be Claire Danes in Homeland, that Freddie Highmore doesn’t get nervous, and that Brenton Thwaites is 25 years old. He looks 15:

But nobody brought as much humor as Tom Mison. He admits that when he read the script for Sleepy Hollow, he thought it was a terrible idea, “this will never work,” as it tears up every book and bastardizes history. So naturally, he wanted to be a part of it. People don’t get much more charming than Mison; the show works precisely because of Mison’s involvement, and this is a rising star.

Who would play Theo Rossi in a movie? Ralph Macchio, “he still would,” even though “he’s 45.”

Mison once got a job in a French language film, tricking the casting directors that he could speak French. He couldn’t speak a word of French, and walked onto a movie set that features a lot of improvising; he’d blurt out his lines whenever he could get a word in, and had someone feed his lines and explain them on the sly. Incredible. Also, that movie must be shite.

Bernthal, who played Shane on Walking Dead, talks about how he was booed before the show even started, because of how much everyone hates Shane in the comic book. He found it funny that people started to like Shane as he became more evil in season 2.

Bernthal worked with Robert De Niro in Grudge Match. De Niro’s his favorite actor, and inspired him to stop being a troublemaker and funnel that passion and anger into the craft. After the movie, he rehearsed a speech he’d give, and delivered it in Bob’s trailer. Afterwards, De Niro said: “We do these things…then it’s over.”

When Tom Mison was getting brought on to Sleepy Hollow, everyone would whisper about how he was “classically trained,” to which Mison responded: “I don’t know what that means.” Then he hazards a guess: “floppy haired and wild accent.”

Rossi admits that Ron Perlman is the most intimidating man on the set of Sons of Anarchy. Duh.

Franich asks Jon Bernthal who he’d like to punch in the industry, in reference to punching Jonah Hill out in Wolf of Wall Street? Bernthal jokes, “I’d hit him again.” Bernthal has broken his nose 14 times. The first time hurt the most, as Bernthal jokes, “I have a face for radio.” False.

Mison wants to work with Bryan Cranston. Bernthal tells us that Emily Blunt is the coolest. Thwaites wants to borrow Bernthal’s experience and work with De Niro. Highmore likes working with the same people again and again, like he’s able to do on Bates Motel. Rossi sucks up and says “everyone on this panel,” because “someone had to say it.” Mison dryly responds: “I couldn’t say I wanted to make a movie with me.”

Apparently Brenton Thwaites watched The Beginners with his friend, and told him he was going to work with Ewan MacGregor in a year. Exactly a year later, he gets cast in Son of a Gun, alongside Ewan. It’s not fair to be a super hot Australian dude and Nostradamus.

The best/worst question of all of Comic-Con comes from a kid, who asks Freddie Highmore, how he can watch Bates Motel but not on iTunes? Freddie has no idea, and it’s hilarious. Nobody wants to watch a show using iTunes.

Mison’s asked what it’s like to work with John Noble. His response: “Which one is he?” In all seriousness, Mison calls Noble amazing, delightful. In one of his first scenes with Noble, he’s eating, and all Mison could do was think about the scene in LOTR and almost burst out laughing.

Mison is rightfully flabbergasted when he’s asked if Mr. Darcy informed his portrayal of Ichabod Crane. Not in any way, he responds. “They’re both assholes with a hat,” he says.

Theo promises that he’s “naked and covered in blood” next season on Sons of Anarchy.

Until last night, TIME AFTER TIME merely meant one of the greatest songs of all-time. Now, after watching the gloriously cheesy, dated but vigorously acted and hilarious 35th anniversary screening of TIME AFTER TIME (1979), it’s alongside BACK TO THE FUTURE as one of the most delightful time travel movies ever made.

In the LA-based Landmark’s ongoing Anniversary Classics series, film critic Stephen Farber puts the spotlight on overlooked gems, bringing in fantastic guests to do a Q&A after the fact. Last night, Malcolm McDowell of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, ENTOURAGE and 229 (!) other credits, paid a visit to talk about his life and career. I’ll get to that, after I revel in discovering TIME AFTER TIME.

TIME AFTER TIME was a hard sell to studios, but Nicholas Meyer, the writer-director of the film, had written “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution,” a 1974 bestseller that combined Sherlock Holmes’ world with that of Sigmund Freud. Convinced by that novel’s success, Warner Bros. stepped up to make this film a reality, which was based on a novel by Karl Alexander (below).

Stephen Farber argues that he thinks TIME AFTER TIME would be a harder sell today, but a movie about H.G. Wells tracking Jack the Ripper in modern day San Francisco sounds exactly like the kind of high-concept crossover movie studios want to be making these days.

WB was hesitant to cast Malcolm McDowell in the role of the romantic lead and hero (H.G. Wells), thanks to his acclaimed role as Alex, the nutjob from Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, that had typecast him (and would continue to do so). They eventually succumbed to Nicholas Meyer’s wishes. When McDowell got the script, it was a Godsend, “I’m not insane,” after all. He was thankful for not being made to play the role of Jack the Ripper.

That task went to David Warner, one of the greatest British thespians of all-time, who’s been in TRON, TITANIC, TIME BANDITS, THE OMEN and innumerable other gems, including indisputable career highlight Professor Jordan Perry in TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II: THE SECRET OF THE OOZE. Here, Warner chews up scenery deliciously, as the creepy John Lesley Stevenson (or “Jack” to his friends), who opens up a creepy music box that never appropriately unnerves his forthcoming victim…right before slashing their throats. Also, if you ever wanted to see Jack the Ripper in a jean jacket…TIME AFTER TIME cures that long-held desire that many of us never knew we had.

Then you throw in Mary Steenburgen, who I’ve mostly only known as the curiously hot older woman (in ELF, STEP BROTHERS), as the hot and foxy younger woman who is super appealing, or Herbert’s love interest. She’s a career woman (in banking), who divorced her husband because he wanted her to be a doting housewife, and is all about the women equality movement, which tickles H.G. Wells to no end, since he trumpeted the cause back in the 19th century. TIME AFTER TIME is Mary’s second film right before winning an Oscar for MELVIN AND HOWARD, but this one is also notable because her and Malcolm fell in love, leading to marriage and two children. It didn’t last unfortunately, and now she’s married to Ted Danson. Here’s to you Mrs. Steenburgen!

Overshadowing everyone else though, is “Boy at Museum,” played by the one, the only…Corey Feldman, right before booking a role on THE BAD NEWS BEARS TV show.

TIME AFTER TIME was critically beloved, but never found the mainstream audience that WB had hoped, thanks to shamelessly publicizing the film as a “Jack the Ripper” movie. It didn’t hurt Nicholas Meyer’s career though; his next film was STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (he also would direct STAR TREK VI). You might have caught that one.

The trumpeting opening, in which the titles zoom toward the screen with altogether too much alacrity, indicates a movie from another age, even dating the late 70’s film, as if we’re stepping into a Universal horror movie. It’s a fantastic introduction to Miklos Rozsa’s soaring presence. The legend won 3 Oscars for film scores, including SPELLBOUND, A DOUBLE LIFE and…BEN-HUR. He was nominated 10 other times, and he’s still got it here, in what was his final film.

In case you couldn’t figure it out from the poster or the trailer, TIME AFTER TIME is a time traveling caper/love story, in which H.G. Wells follows Jack the Ripper into the future to stop him. How do we get there?

In 1893, H.G. Wells has a big announcement to make to his closest friends, waiting for Dr. John Lesley Stevenson’s arrival. He’s late, of course, busy murdering a hooker in an alley somewhere. When he arrives, Wells announces that he’s made a time machine, and intends on using it, though he hasn’t worked up the nerve to do so yet.

When the cops arrive, searching every house in the area, and stumble upon John’s bag, filled with incriminating evidence, Stevenson is gone. To the future. Thanks to plot, the time machine returns home (because H.G. Wells had the homing key, or something), and Wells is forced to follow Jack the Ripper into the future, believing that he’s unwittingly sent a murdering psychopath into a utopia. Instead, he happens to land in 1979 San Francisco, a place that Jack the Ripper feels more at home than H.G. Wells does…until our resourceful hero runs into a horny young banker desperate to exchange foreign currency (that’s a euphemism, but also her job).

With the setting 1970’s San Francisco, I thought that perhaps they were going to link Jack the Ripper and Zodiac Killer, but the timeline would be messed up, not that we wouldn’t have forgiven that. It’s a time travel movie after all.

From there, we get many scenes that BACK TO THE FUTURE either borrowed, stole or paid homage to, blowing my mind, and possibly rupturing the space-time continuum in the process.

Consider this scene, when H.G. Wells outs himself as a time traveler to Amy:

It’s very much reminiscent of when Doc Brown comes clean to Clara in BACK TO THE FUTURE III. Take a deep breath…CLARA IS ALSO PLAYED BY MARY STEENBURGEN, who proves a lot madder the second time around, probably because Mary Steenburgen is tired of falling for liars/raving lunatics with awesome hair. Of course, the “second” time technically happened in 1885 in the Old West, eight years before she ultimately travels back to London with H.G. Wells (oh, spoilers). Is Clara/Amy an evil mastermind, collecting awkward time travelers? Is BACK TO THE FUTURE a spin-off to TIME AFTER TIME? “This is heavy, Doc.”

The date that Wells and the Ripper go back and forth on is November 5th, which is in fact one of the dates used in BACK TO THE FUTURE, as we can see from the following chart:

A newspaper from the future is even used as a key plot device in several scenes. There is no Enchantment Under the Sea Dance, unfortunately.

Whenever H.G. Wells’ silly time machine travels through time, it’s akin to LSD-laced/PTSD-like flashbacks from when you were a kid and you stared at those psychedelic kaleidoscopes too long, with rainbow colors splashing across the screen willy nilly. Considering the time machine is littered with rainbow orbs like the friggin’ Infinity Gems, it makes sense.

While TIME AFTER TIME is clearly a science fiction movie, it’s more heavily rooted in rom-com territory, thanks to the overarching romance between Herbert and Amy, as they fall in love on the eminently fall-in-lovable streets of San Francisco.

The pair of them are so adorably awkward, and so clearly hot for each other, that you’re begging them to mash genitals after the first scene. When they do finally start kissing, Amy even admits that she’s practically raping him. This is after she said she wasn’t a dyke and asked if there were a lot of A-rabs in Britain (her co-worker wanted to marry into oil). Visual evidence:

Either way, it’s nice to see a woman take control, giving bumbling geniuses with girl problems a break.

In many ways, H.G. Wells is like Ichabod Crane of SLEEPY HOLLOW, doddering around, stumbling upon astounding new inventions like the electric toothbrush, garbage disposal, and escalators. You already knew McDowell was a genius, but in TIME AFTER TIME, he shows off his slapstick and comedy skillz. It’s impossible not to chuckle at him following a woman in saran wrap (?), whilst taking notes:

There’s a lot to write about, there. Oh, and check him out trying McDonald’s (referred to later as a “Scottish restaurant”) for the first time, a few of the more blatant product placement opportunities that don’t feel as manipulative as they should:

Early in the film, it’s established that Stevenson and Herbert are the type of friends that always play chess, and that Stevenson ALWAYS wins, a face-palm metaphor for the cat and mouse game that is to come. The best scenes in the film, except when I’m fantasizing about Mary Steenburgen’s frizzy hair and chuckling at H.G. Wells’ “oh, dude in the past” antics, are when David Warner and Malcolm McDowell share the spotlight, going mano e mano:

TIME AFTER TIME is one of those movies that gets better with age, because its jokes are just as funny, and so many other lines become unintentionally hilarious. Plus, it’s a time travel movie, and time travel movies are the best subgenre there is. If you haven’t seen it, it’s high time to rectify that mistake, like I just did.

Besides, if there’s justice in the world, there will be a sequel, since Karl Alexander wrote one to his book. Behold:

Bwahaha.

OPTIONAL MINI-DRINKING GAME:

-Drink every time H.G. Wells touches his glasses.

-Drink for every bank you see.

If you want to cough up $1.99, you can watch Time After Time on YouTube here. Or, buy the DVD on Amazon for $5.99. It’s well worth it.

MALCOLM MCDOWELL ANECDOTES:

Afterwards, McDowell got to talk about his astounding life and career. Anyone who can tell stories that include Laurence (“Larry”) Olivier, Alan Bates and Helen Mirren (for ONE PLAY) has won. He recounted his age of debauchery with the Royal Shakespeare Group in England, where he tried to get fired (and filled his off-time with drinking, gambling and women). While he clearly missed the stage once he got going about it, he characterized himself as “a stage actor, but I escaped.”

While he loved and trusted Stanley Kubrick, and had to for his role in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, he mentioned that Kubrick screwed him out of money for the movie. This was an ongoing theme, as he told a story about when he met Gene Kelly (who he paid homage to in the infamous Singing in the Rain sequence from CLOCKWORK), who looked him up and down, and stalked off without a word. 40 years later, Gene’s widow would tell him that he wasn’t mad at McDowell, but at Kubrick, because he hadn’t gotten paid.

His favorite actor of all-time? James Cagney (WHITE HEAT, SCARFACE). For him, there has never been someone more unpredictable, possessing his unique brand of energy.